Beast of Burden
by Lithos Maitreya
Summary: When Adam Taurus was eight years old, he met three people and had a vision. The event changed his life. Now he's 21, and it's time to face the music.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This little anti-Peggy Sue trope is a favorite of mine. Shame we have so few fics that use it. The concept, in short, is that some characters from before the beginning of the show watch the show, and then change their behavior afterwards in response to that advance knowledge.**

 **Now, there's one problem. All the stories we have focus on the watching-the-show bit. Which is interesting, but… I'm more curious about the next bit. So that's what I'll be exploring.**

* * *

 _Beast of Burden_

Chapter 1

* * *

Adam Taurus, at eight years old, was not what one would call a model child, and he'd probably try to take a bite out of anyone who called him as much.

There weren't many lines in his world he wouldn't cross in the name of keeping himself and his charge alive. Why should he care if the humans that surrounded him needed these provisions, or had obtained them legally? _He_ needed them—more importantly, _Blake_ needed them—and laws and orphaned Faunus on the streets didn't get on well.

He ducked into an alleyway and stowed the balled blanket, along with the food inside it, inside a dark alcove behind a metal oil drum. He kept running down the alley, his bare light feet pattering lightly on the stonework. When he heard the telltale thudding of the mech's metal feet entering the alley he ducked behind the nearest obstacle.

...And found himself rolling into a sprawl somewhere else entirely. He blinked once before springing to his feet, already prepared for a fight or a chase.

Fortunately, it seemed like no one else was quite ready for such exertion. He was in a spacious, comfortable room, furnished with leather couches and chairs such as he'd seen in the occasional high-end store.

The only oddity? There were no doors or windows.

All of the seating ran the circumference of the semicircular walls, save for the single flat wall opposite him. On that side of the room were two things. The first was a single black panel, set sharply against the warm brick-red wallpaper. The other was a woman sitting in a small wooden armchair beneath it.

Her hair was dark, in sharp contrast with her starkly pale skin, and her eyes seemed almost to glow like liquid gold. They studied him lazily as he tensed for a fight.

"Calm down, Adam," the woman said in a silky, languid tone. "I'm not going to hurt you this time."

His fists clenched. "Do I know you?" he growled.

A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. "My, but you _were_ adorable as a child weren't you?" she asked. "No, Adam Taurus, you don't know me. Not yet. Rest assured, that will change."

"Well," said a man's voice from behind Adam, to his left. Adam turned to study the rest of the room. "This is cozy."

Three other people were picking themselves up off the ground. The first to rise had been a blond man of medium height, clad in brown and yellow. Beside him, a woman in a white cloak was helping herself up using his hand as support. The crimson tips of her dark hair were all Adam could see of her face from this angle. On the other side of the room, a girl about Adams age was rubbing one eye sleepily while the other darted from one person to another warily, settling on Adam most often. She wore a frilled white dress with lace on the hem, and her snowy hair was tied behind her into a short ponytail.

The hair in particular caught Adam's eye. _A Schnee._ The single most despicable family in the scope of his knowledge. He bared his teeth at her before turning back to the woman, who seemed a much more present threat.

"I mean," the man continued, "I don't actually know who any of you are except Summer, but I always like meeting new people!"

The woman in the chair snorted lightly and turned her liquid eyes from Adam onto the man. "So I've heard, Mr. Xiao Long," she agreed with an odd, amused lilt to her voice. "I heard you got to know more than one of your teammates in a very… biblical sense."

Adam didn't know what that meant. From the indignant "Hey, I was just trying to be friendly!" from behind him, he assumed the man did.

"Well, I'm not," said the woman, rising from her chair in one fluid motion, her dark gown seeming to flow around her body like a curtain of water. "I really have no interest in cozying up with any of you. In a few minutes, I'll be dead, and you'll be finding out why. So for once in your life, Taiyang, take your first wife's advice and shut up."

There was silence.

"Thank you," said the woman, studying each of them inn turn with those golden eyes. "I have a lot to explain, and not much time."

"My name is Cinder Fall. You'll be hearing some of my story shortly. With help from a few former enemies, I was able to get this," she gestured vaguely about the room, "set up, using the last drops of my Aura as a battery. The situation, basically, is this. I'm from about fifteen years in your future, and the world is about to end."

"Excuse me, what?" said a mature female voice from Adam's left—the white-cloaked woman, he assumed.

"No interruptions," said the dark woman flatly. "I don't have time, and you'll get all the answers soon anyway. I found a… repository… of the story of our world over the past five or so years, from my perspective. I couldn't bring all of it here, so you'll have to settle for a summary of the ending. For the beginning of it, though, I have footage." She snapped her fingers and the panel—no, screen—behind her lit up. "You will watch this footage," she said firmly, "you will read the summary you will receive at the end of the showing, and you will memorize as many details as you can. When the spell fades—likely in about forty-eight hours—you will be deposited back at the exact place and time you were pulled from, armed with the foreknowledge to prevent the end of the world. Are we clear?"

"Not really," said the blond man, stepping forward into Adam's peripheral vision, his arms crossed. "Want to explain why you're entrusting the fate of the world to two kids of, what, eight?"

Cinder Fall nodded, a slight smile gracing her features. "Two children of eight," she agreed, "a lumbering man-child who never really grew up until he started losing people, and the little Silverblood who couldn't. Bit of a motley crew, aren't you?"

The man—Taiyang—growled at her wordlessly. She just chuckled, and then grew serious.

"There are four people," she said quietly, "who need to be protected. Four young women who are the real heroes of this narrative. One for each of you. It should become clear fairly quickly why you four were the obvious choices."

Suddenly she blinked and looked down at her hand, and Adam, following her gaze, realized she didn't have one anymore. Her right hand—and most of the arm, by now—was fading into the air, like dissipating mist.

She smiled slightly. "Well, isn't that just fitting," she said to herself. "An arm for an arm, and a life for Remnant?" She blinked languidly up at them. "Well, it appears I'm out of time," she said. "Try to get along, won't you? You're quite literally the last hope for Remnant. Tap the screen to start the footage, and tap it again to pause it if you need to."

The rapidity of her fading took Adam by surprise. Already, she was little more than a floating head. "Please," she said, and there was an honesty to the plea like nothing she had said before. "Don't screw it up this t—" and then her mouth was gone, followed by the rest of her face. The last thing to vanish was one golden eye, which was piercing, bright, and inconceivably calm to the very last.

For a moment there was a dead silence.

"Well, that was… awful," said Taiyang succinctly. "Even if she wasn't very nice."

"I didn't get the feeling she liked you very much," the woman beside him agreed. Adam turned to get a good look at her now that she was standing properly.

She was smaller than he'd realized, and her face was soft and pale. Through the opening in the front of her cloak, Adam could see a black battleskirt. What really caught his attention, however, were her eyes, silver and glistening like polished coins.

She smiled at him. "I'm Summer Rose," she introduced herself. "This idiot is my husband, Taiyang Xiao Long." She knelt to be at eye level with him. "What's your name?" she asked.

His eyes narrowed. Did she actually think he would trust her that easily? Humans were stupid sometimes—especially the rich ones. "Adam," he said flatly, knowing an answer was required but not willing to give any more than necessary.

Her smile almost looked sincere as she nodded. "It's a nice name," she told him. "Strong."

His teeth gritted involuntarily. Who did this woman think she was?

She turned her eyes on the other girl. "And what's your name?" she asked gently.

"Schnee," Adam answered for her, turning away.

"Winter," the girl corrected from behind him. "Winter Schnee."

"Do you two know each other?" Summer asked.

"No," Adam said firmly. "She's a Schnee."

"My family is… well known among the Faunus," Schnee said. "For obvious reasons."

"Look," Adam said, turning back to the others. "I'm not going to be getting along with any of you humans any time soon. Can we just watch this 'footage' quickly so I can get on with my life?"

Summer frowned at him sadly, looking as hurt as if he were a dear friend saying that to her. It was almost enough to make him feel bad. Almost.

Regardless, she nodded and made her way over to the screen. "Take a seat, everyone," she said. "Let's get started."

The lights dimmed.

 _The screen lit up slowly as words flashed across it._

 **ROOSTER TEETH  
presents**

"What's that mean?" Taiyang asked blankly. Summer paused the footage and Adam growled.

"Look, old man," he grumbled, "I just want to get on with my life. Can we not question everything that happens here? It's probably all made up anyway."

Taiyang gave him a petulant frown. "I'm not old," he grumbled.

"All the same," Summer said magnanimously, "I doubt any of us have answers to any questions. We should move on."

Taiyang sighed. "Fine, fine, sorry. Go on, I'll be quiet."

Summer started the footage again.

 _A guitar played a soft, mournful melody as the image faded in. It seemed to be the moon, in one of its properly full cycles with the fragmentation hidden. Snow blew into the image from one side and from the other a single red rose petal floated past their eyes._

 **a new series by  
MONTY OUM**

Taiyang visibly held back his interruption as the rarely-spoken full name of the primary deity of one of Remnant's more popular religions appeared on the screen. Adam rolled his eyes.

 _Then a girl's voice began to sing; a long, soft note, wordless and emotive. As she continued, harmonizing with the guitar, the image faded to a girl—the singer, perhaps—clad in a red hooded cloak over a black battledress, standing in the snow over what had to be a grave._

 _Then the voice began to sing as the image panned around the girl._

 _ **Red like roses fills my dreams and brings me to the place you rest.**_

On 'brings' the girl began to walk into the camera. On 'place' she seemed to phase through it, revealing the headstone, and Taiyang started up. "Pause it," he demanded.

Summer did. Adam growled. "Oh, not ag—" and then he saw the headstone.

 **Summer Rose  
Thus Kindly I Scatter**

He hadn't believed they were seeing the future before, and he certainly didn't now. The trembling in his hands was just cold.

"Summer?" Taiyang's voice was soft and gentle. "Come here. Are you okay?"

Summer didn't move. Her head was bowed, and her hood was over her face, obscuring it from view. Then she looked up, not at any of them, but at the screen, and Adam could see that her eyes were wet. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry, Ruby."

Taiyang blinked. "What's Rub—" and then he stopped, too, as if struck by a realization. "That was…"

"Our little girl," Summer whispered. "Why was she out in a snowstorm alone? Why did I die, and leave her? Why weren't _you_ there—are you dead too?"

Taiyang shook his head mutely.

On his other side, Winter gently touched his knee. "That's why we're here," she said quietly. "To make things better."

Taiyang's eyes closed, and when they opened again they were like blue steel. "Right," he agreed. "If you're ready, Summer…"

Summer nodded, wiping her eyes. "I'm ready," she confirmed. "But I don't think I want to be on pause duty. I don't think I can…"

Adam stood up. "I'll do it," he said flatly. "That way I can ignore stupid pauses."

"That wasn't—" Taiyang began hotly, but Summer shushed him.

"Thank you, Adam," she said with a slightly damp smile. "I appreciate it."

She retreated to the couch while Adam pulled Cinder's armchair to the side to he could sit in it and still see the screen. When they were situated, he tapped it.

 _The red-cloaked girl, Ruby, was walking through a snowy forest. The trees formed an eerie black canopy above her, and their trunks were dappled unnaturally with ice. The voice sang as she walked through several shots out of the forest and into a frozen glade._

 _ **White is cold and always yearning, burdened by a royal test.**_

The Schnee made a small sound, but no pause request was forthcoming, and Adam had no intention of respecting one anyway.

Then, as the voice sang the next line, they were shown the rest of the clearing, and Taiyang hissed in something like worry. Adam understood. The girl was surrounded by beowolves.

 _ **Black, the beast, descends from shadows;**_

 _And as the next line began, the beasts charged her._

 _ **Yellow beauty burns…**_

 _In a flurry of rose petals, the girl vanished, confusing the beasts until one looked up. She was framed, mid-leap, against the moon, one hand already reaching back to grasp at a weapon._

… _ **gold.**_

 _Her weapon shifted from a compact form into a firearm, and as the music changed to a more energetic melody, she fired into the head of one of the monsters. It exploded into a shower of red petals as the beast fell._

 _She fired into another as she landed, vaulted over its falling corpse, and fired into two more past it._

 _Then she turned to face the rest of the horde and extended her weapon fully. The thing had to be almost twice her height—a great scythe, red as blood and designed with sharp angles that made it seem almost predatory._

Summer and Taiyang looked at each other in the corner of his vision, but didn't request a pause. Adam figured they would have pauses every so often to discuss details in bulk, if necessary.

 _One of the beowolves charged. Ruby caught it, trapping it under the blade of her scythe. Its head rose to growl at her, but she just smirked slightly and pulled the weapon's trigger. The momentum of the fire pulled her blade straight through the monster's body, bisecting it along a diagonal._

 _As the corpse dissolved into rose petals, the other Grimm charged. Ruby met them by stabbing the blade of her scythe into the ground for stability and firing her gun with repeated bolt-action. Each round connected, and by the time the line had reached her only one beast remained on the front line. Ruby pulled her blade out, leapt into the air, and hit it in the face with a final shot._

 _The recoil sent her flying, but she caught herself by stabbing the scythe into the ground and landed gracefully perched on the handle. Then she looked back, and the screen showed a larger horde of Grimm charging at her from the cover of the trees._

Adam privately agreed with Summer's worried intake of breath. There _were_ an awful lot of them.

 _Ruby dodged the first one, arcing herself through the air to angle herself parallel to her weapon's haft and grounding her feet in the guard of her blade. From that position she fired into the next monster, launching herself into a flip from which she kicked the one that had just charged past her…_

Adam blinked. He thought of himself as quick, both in body and mind, but Ruby, by now, was moving faster than he could follow. Her blade darted through one Grimm after another, the internal firearm firing with methodical accuracy, and Adam couldn't really see the details anymore except that three Grimm fell in quick succession, the last decapitated with the same recoil trick that had bisected its brother earlier.

 _Then another Grimm charged from behind her, with yet another on its heels, and this time Adam caught what she did. With a couple slashes she got her blade behind its torso, ready for another bisection, but this time she timed it so that even as the recoil cut into the first Grimm, the second was hit by the bullet. Even more impressively, the flying upper half of the slashed monster flew behind her and brained another of its comrades._

Taiyang let out an exhilarated whoop at that. Adam rolled his eyes, but didn't pause.

 _Two more Grimm charged the girl from behind but with to neat leaps she cleared them both before charging back in to divest one of an arm and a leg. When its brother charged her, she swung herself about its neck using her scythe as a hook, landing on its neck. She cocked her weapon and fired, launching herself upward even as she beheaded the monster in a flurry of red petals._

 _For a moment her face was framed against the moon as she studied the battlefield below her. Fragmented Grimm corpses were dissolving amid their live, charging comrades._

 _One leapt upward at her. She brought her scythe around spinning and jumped off of its falling carcass into another, and yet another, both of which she dispatched in the same manner._

 _Another Grimm deflected her with its claws and she allowed the force to push her back. She embedded her scythe into the snowy earth and cut a gash into the ground as she slowed herself._

 _She took a moment to survey the field before her. The Grimm were numerous and seemed poised to charge. She calmly ejected a magazine from her rifle and inserted another in the brief lull. He scythe swung around behind her and she fired._

 _She was launched into the horde, cutting down three Grimm before firing again to shift her direction. After some airtime, her feet hit the ground running and she sifted the shape of her scythe into an even crueler-looking bown before launching herself again, wound up for a strike._

 _The Grimm turned too late. She whirled, obliterating them one after another in long, sweeping strikes that rent each monster cleanly in two. Shadowy husks of flesh and bullet casings alike were launched in great numbers into the air as she spun among the horde, totally at ease with the high-speed action._

 _At length, with one final whirling strike that slew the remaining beowolves, she launched herself into a clear ready stance, her scythe poised behind her, the blade curved down. Her face was little more than a silhouette to the watchers, framed against the moon. Even as she stood, a veritable rain of spent sheels came down into the snow around her like so much snowfall._

 _The imarge faded; her likeness framed in black against the solid red circle of the moon's whole face. Below her image, words appeared—barely legible for their size._

Adam tried to read as far as he could.

 _presents  
"RWBY"_

Beyond that, as far as he could tell, was a list of names, but he had no time to read them before the words vanished.

 _The red image was enclosed with darkness until only the thin profile of the silhouette remained. This image shifted to the left and seeming from behind it similar card-like silhouettes were drwn, each on a different color: white, black, and yellow._

 _Below each image a letter appeared in white: R, W, B, Y. The image of the girl with the scythe suddenly filled in, revealing a less-realistic, more stylized drawing of her in color. The other three images remained dark and secretive._

 _At the bottom, below the images, were the words "COMING 2013."_

 _The image faded to darkness._

The lights came back on.

Adam's jaw worked soundlessly behind closed lips.

"Weiss," said Winter quietly.

He turned to the other three people in the room. "Say again?" he asked.

"The girl in white at the end; the second silhouette." The Schnee's voice was a little shaken but her eyes were sharp. "I… I believe it was my sister."

"I expect we'll see her soon, then," Summer said, audibly swallowing. "But… oh, _Ruby_ …"

Adam shook his head. "Then why am I here?" he asked. "If that's true, then the three of you are connected to the two of them. Who are the other two and what's my part?"

"The fourth one," Taiyang said thickly. "Yellow. Might be my other daughter, Yang."

" _Our_ other daughter," Summer corrected him gently, taking his hand. "And you may be right. Do you know anyone who might be the one in black, Adam?"

Adam's mind flashed unbidden to the little girl he should be taking care of at this moment.

"I might," she said noncommittally. _Once we get out of here… I can't lead the Schnees to Blake._

Summer nodded understandingly. "If not now," she offered knowingly, "then perhaps you will when you're older. It doesn't matter now, I suppose."

"Can we get back to Ruby for a bit?" Taiyang asked shakily. "I'm kind of wondering why my daughter was—will be— _that good_ at, what, fourteen? She can't be old enough to go to Beacon in that clip!"

Summer shook her head. "I don't know, Tai," she said, and her voice spoke of despair and worry. "I don't know."

There was silence. "I guess I have to press the, uh, play button to start the next clip," Adam said. "Should I do that?"

There was a round of nods. "Please," said Winter.

He narrowed his eyes at her but obliged.

* * *

Adam Taurus, age 21, turned to face the door as it opened, his hand already slipping to the hilt of his sword.

"Blake," he said quietly, as the familiar visage of his younger partner came through the narrow opening, shutting it quietly behind her. His breath was soft and relieved. "You surprised me."

She smiled thinly at him. "Sorry, Adam."

He shrugged, turning back to the map of Vale. "Occupational hazard," he said, his voice still low. "Anyone see you come in?"

She didn't answer and after a moment, he turned back to her sharply. She looked shifty.

"Blake?" he asked, his heart beginning to hasten at the prospect of danger.

"There's… someone here," she said slowly. "She… well, she said she knows you? Which I don't know if I believe."

He frowned. I don't understand.

Blake sighed. "Blanc's watching her," she said. "You'd… better come see this."

He nodded and followed her out. There was Blanc Rivi, his chainsaw out and ready, his yellow slitted eyes surveying the woman before him. Surrounding her were a few of Adam's men; competent soldiers, but not so skilled or so wise as the lieutenant.

None of this did Adam notice in that moment. The woman, clad in the crisp white uniform of the Atlesian military—yet somehow still managing to make it hug every curve tightly—was already watching her out of her deep blue-gray eyes.

"Adam," she murmured. "It's been a long time."

Rivi snorted. "You must be delusional, lady," she said. "Adam wouldn't be caught _dead_ associating with even a Schnee reject."

Adam ignored him completely. "Winter," she said courteously, suddenly and guiltily wishing for a mask like he'd once seen on his own face so that he could study her form more freely than the cursory glance he allowed himself with uncovered eyes. "You've grown."

She smiled. "I haven't been eight in a long time," she said, pirouetting gracefully. "I should hope I've changed somewhat. You certainly have."

His lips twitched into a smile. "It's good to see you again," he said. _I was beginning to wonder if I ever would._

"Hold on," said Rivi flatly, turning to him. "You _know_ this bitch?"

Adam glanced at him. "Don't call her that," she said blandly. "Come in, Winter. Coffee or tea?"

"Tea, please," Winter said, with a quick glance at Blake. "Thank you."

Adam nodded, his gaze drifting up to the night sky. "Rivi, get a couple more people on watch," he ordered. "I want redundancy in case someone comes looking for Winter. Blake, come in with us; I'll introduce you."

He led them into the building that had once been a warehouse in Vale's industrial district and had now been repurposed into a makeshift headquarters and barracks. Makeshift cots lined the walls—more cots than there were personnel, though not by all that much—and a map of Vale beside a larger map of Remnant dominated the back wall, both marked up to Adam's specifications.

Winter whistled lowly. "You certainly have been busy," she said, nodding at a pile of crates, marked red for volatility. "That's a great deal of Dust."

"All legally acquired," Adam defended, looking over his shoulder at her as he led the three of them across the warehouse's central space towards a side room which had become both his quarters and his office. "I'm not _Torchwick_."

Winter smiled. "I know," she agreed. "You're not in a cell."

He stopped and turned to face her fully, blinking. "You what?" he asked.

She smiled a grin that would have looked perfect on a cat faunus—if they were named Cheshire, and not Blake. "We have a great deal to talk about," she promised.

He shook his head and opened the door for her and Blake to step through, before following them in and crossing to the range that had been set up for him. "Sit down, please," he said. "Sorry if it's a bit drab; it's the best we've got." _Only reason I have it at all is so that I can use it for meetings like this—well, not_ that _much like this._

"It's quite all right," Winter said, taking a seat alongside the still-silent Blake. "I certainly wasn't expecting five-star accommodations when I came to see you."

Adam filled the kettle with water with one hand and started the Dust-powered stove with the other as he answered. "I figure, but you're probably used to better. Sorry."

Winter chuckled gently. "Adam, I'm an _operative,_ " she said. "You and I probably have very similar definitions of the phrase 'roughing it,' if you can believe it."

Adam snorted, putting the kettle on and turning back to them. "I can," he said, taking the third seat around the table. "Winter, this is Blake Belladonna. Blake, this is Winter Schnee. She's an old friend."

Blake's eyes were narrowed, and darting from one to the other of them. "This is a joke, right?" she asked lowly.

Winter laughed lightly—a soft, musical sound. "I'm afraid not, Miss Belladonna," she said. "Adam and I met when you were four years old. I haven't had much of a chance to get back in touch with him since."

The first few weeks after the… meeting… had been difficult for Adam. Between wondering if the three wonderful people he'd come to know even existed outside his own head, and struggling with the knowledge of the monster he had the potential to become, he'd barely been able to steal enough food to keep himself and Blake walking. It might have continued until he dismissed the time spent in that other place as a dream if he had not gotten incredibly lucky.

"Summer told me she met you in Vale, a few weeks after we met," Winter said. "She said you barely believed we existed."

Adam grimaced. "It was hard," he acknowledged. "To accept that something that…" _incredible/frightening/enlightening_ "…strange had actually happened. That people like… like you could even exist, especially when I was still having to steal apples from stalls to stay alive and keep Blake going."

Winter nodded understandingly. "I admit," she said, "it was sometimes difficult to imagine someone like Taiyang ever existing when I was in the Schnee manor. He would _not_ fit in."

Adam chuckled and turned to Blake. "So, yeah," he said. "Winter and I met, along with two other people one day while I was getting food for us. We weren't all in one place for long… but it stuck." He glanced at Winter. "Is Weiss…?"

She nodded. "She and I managed to badger Father into granting permission a few weeks ago," she said. "It's part of why I tried to find you."

Adam nodded. "Her sister should be going to Beacon with you," he told Blake.

Blake frowned. "Weiss Schnee?" she asked blankly. "The heiress? Why would she be going to Beacon instead of to the Atlesian Military Academy, or to a civilian school?"

"Mostly because it's a chance for her to get out from Father's sphere," Winter said. "It's a chance for her to grow up."

Blake's eyes hardened. "And she thinks living a luxury life in Vale instead of Atlas is going to be some kind of enlightening journey?" she asked coldly.

Adam frowned slightly at her, but Winter answered calmly.

"I think Weiss is as spoiled and naïve as I was at her age," she said, adding to him, "and make no mistake, Adam, I _was_ spoiled, despite all that I knew from when we met. It left an impression—it changed my life—but it didn't totally alter how I lived each day. It's quite impossible, Miss Belladonna, to have a perspective on real suffering when you live every minute of your life in a cage so gilded you can scarcely see the bars."

That shut Blake up. Adam gently touched her arm. "Yeah, she'll be a spoiled rich kid if you meet her," he said. "She won't be the only one, Kitten. You can't really blame _her_ for it."

Blake's exposed ears flattened. "Don't call me that," she hissed, glaring at him and flushing.

Winter giggled.

The kettle whistled. Adam stood and crossed to it. "Black, green, or white?" he asked over his shoulder.

"Black, for me," Winter said. "I have a great deal to do tonight."

"Same here," Blake said. Adam knew she was deliberately going with Winter's choice so that he might use the tea leaves and strainer instead of cheap teabags.

Obligingly he poured a few dried leaves into a mesh bowl and placed it into a teapot before pouring the kettle's contents in, the hot water releasing a hint of the scent almost immediately upon contact. He covered the pot and returned to the table. "It'll be a few minutes," he said unnecessarily.

Winter nodded. "Waiting for the tea to steep," she said, "is often the best part. It allows one to begin conversations with advance knowledge that an interruption is incoming. That being said, Adam, I'm afraid I'm not here purely for pleasure. I need information."

Adam raised an eyebrow at her. "You might've been better off going to Torchwick," he said dryly. "I'm no broker, Winter."

She shorted. "No, but I think you have what I need," she said. "I'm wondering who's been stealing Schnee Dust shipments, and I have a feeling you can put me on a trail at least."

Blake glared over at the Atlesian operative. "Are you accusing us of stealing _Dust_ of all things?" she asked sharply.

Winter blinked slowly at Blake, and Adam felt the irony thickly.

"Not at all," Winter said eventually, but sincerely. "But if there's anyone I trust who might be familiar with Vale's underworld, it's Adam Taurus."

Adam nodded before cocking his head at her. "Well," he said, "I'd have said 'Torchwick,' yesterday, but I think you have news."

Winter smiled smugly. "Indeed," she said. "Using information provided by an… anonymous tip, Roman Torchwick was apprehended on charges of petty theft. Preliminary investigations look promising. He should be solidly off the streets for the next few years."

"But the dust thefts haven't stopped."

Winter's smile slid off her face. "Adam," she said softly, "they've _accelerated_."

* * *

 **A/N: That's a wrap. So you see the format I'm going for. Each chapter will be divided in two parts—Adam and the others, fifteen years before the show, will watch parts of the show in the first part, and the second part will be set fifteen years later, dealing with their changed situations and their response to the coming crises.**

 **I HOPE this thing will be capable of assimilating Volume 4 and future RWBY content from Rooster Teeth, but that, of course, is entirely uncertain. Regardless, once I get caught up or some other issue causes me to finish the story up, Cinder's 'written summary' will be used to finish up the first part as the second part winds to a close.**

 **Don't expect frequent updates. I've got a lot of crap on my plate. This was mostly to get the juices flowing, and while I like my Adam, I don't like him enough to put everything else on hold.**

 **(I still have to finish my Remnants oneshots, after all.)**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Having finished Silver Tears, the last part of the Remnants series of RWBY oneshots I was working on… I found I wasn't done with the series until Volume 4. So I finished this chapter.**

 **It is** _ **damn**_ **hard to transcribe a Monty Oum combat scene. Holy** _ **fuck**_ **that man was a genius of choreography. On the one hand, his stuff is a joy to watch. On the other hand, writing it down takes** _ **hours**_ **.** _ **Per minute of footage**_ **. Probably going to have some kind of workaround so I don't have to transcribe all of the show, or we'll never get anywhere.**

* * *

 _Beast of Burden_

Chapter 2

* * *

 _The darkness of the screen was pierced with a single phrase in white:_

" _ **Everyone is entitled to their own sorrow, for the heart has no metrics or form of measure. And all of it… irreplaceable."**_

Adam frowned at the words. _All of what?_ he wondered.

 _The words faded, and into the darkness, a voice spoke. "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Weiss Schnee."_

 _Even as the words were said, the screen began to clear. First, the words_

 **ROOSTER TEETH  
presents**

 _appeared in the center once again, and then just as they began to fade, an image faded in—a girl in white, stepping out of the shadows and into a spotlight._

Adam chanced a glance at Winter, but she was intent on the screen, her eyes glued to the young woman.

 _There was cheering, as of an audience, and the screen cut to the girl's—Weiss'—face as she looked up from where her head had been bowed. Her eyes were a shade of blue a touch lighter than Winter's, and a faint scar marked her left eye, running from above the brow to the cheekbone. Her long white hair, rather like Winter's, was clasped in a ponytail which she wore asymmetrically on her right._

Given the crisp formality of both hers and Winter's dress and appearance, the two imperfections struck Adam. Even as cold fury rose in his chest at the sight of the Schnee, it was tempered by a hint of curiosity.

 _A piano began to play—a soft, high, mournful melody. The camera cut to a profile of the girl, then to a view from behind her, showing what she was facing—a massive crowd, illuminated with floodlights, all watching, and yet all silencing as the piano began to play._

 _They saw her face again. Her eyes closed, and she began to sing._

 _ **Mirror, tell me something, tell me who's the loneliest of all.**_

Adam heard a faint gasp, like a sob cut short, from Winter, but he did not turn, and no request to pause was forthcoming.

 _As the last word faded, the image sank in perspective, focusing on Weiss' reflection in the polished ground until the singer had faded away. This Weiss had a rapier at her side, and as the camera spun to give a profile of her face, her blue eyes opened and rose to face something._

 _They were given a view from behind again, then, and shown her foe—a massive knight in monochrome, possibly a mech._

Adam heard a faint sound from behind him, and glanced to see that Winter had clenched the armrests of her seat tightly enough that her knuckles were cracking. Her eyes were full of the familiar hardness that came with fear.

 _Drums began to beat, and then violins and strings began to play, a fast, energetic riff which maintained the reminiscent quality of the music. Even as this began, the knight stood tall and brought its massive two-handed sword into a ready grip._

 _As it struck, Weiss leapt back, flipped, and drew her rapier, the voice beginning once again to sing._

 _ **Mirror, tell me something.**_

 _Even as the words were sung, Weiss brought her rapier into a warding position by her face before charging with a powerful thrust which cast her past the knight as it blocked. She landed behind it, and quickly turned to respond to its counter._

 _ **Tell me who's the loneliest of all.**_

 _As the knight slashed with a great downward strike, Weiss launched herself to the side, and struck at its exposed flank with a series of rapid stabs._

 _It was unaffected, and swung about to slash at her with its greatsword. She caught it on her rapier, but was thrust back across the hall by the impact._

 _Even as she recovered, it leapt at her with an overhand swing of its blade, which she elegantly sidestepped with a hands-free cartwheel._

 _ **Fear of what's inside me…**_

 _It brought its sword upward at her, and Weiss flipped backward to avoid it, but even as she landed it was already slashing at her from the side again. She managed to catch the blade with hers once more, but fumbled; the impact sent her flying back onto her back._

Winter made a small noise, but again, no request for a pause was forthcoming.

 _Weiss recovered admirably, handspringing back to her feet. Her stance shifted, and she brought her offhand forward to siphon aura through her fingers before kneeling to channel it into her heeled boots, under which a glyph in the shape of a stylized snowflake appeared._

 _ **Tell me, can a heart be turned to stone?**_

 _The glyph seemed to provide her with a boost to momentum, which she used to lunged forward at the knight. She held her blade defensively as she charged, and nimbly avoided the mech's reprisal, flickering behind it before leaping over its head, spinning to strike at it three times with the tip of her rapier. As she passed it, she formed another glyph underfoot, in midair, to leap down past its led, striking it in the knee, in the side, and then lunging away in a tactical withdrawal._

 _As she noticed its ongoing recovery, she engaged again. She whirled striking four times at its knee from different angles, each attack forcing her opponent back. Then she knelt, forming a glyph below her, and sprang upwards, her rapier catching the thing's helmet as she rose, staggering it._

 _She pirouetted in the air, bringing her limbs together and rendering herself horizontal, before setting a glyph underfoot and launching herself directly at her enemy's face._

 _She spun in the air as she passed it, slashing it twice, before catching herself on another midair glyph._

 _The knight slashed at her legs, but she leapt over the blade, the glyph fading._

 _Then its other arm came up and punched her directly in a thundering impact, casting her tumbling backwards, head over heels, before landing on her stomach._

"Weiss!" Winter gasped sharply, reflexively. Adam paused, and looked over at her.

Winter's eyes were closed, her teeth clenched. "I apologize," she said. "I will attempt to control myself better. Please, Adam, continue."

He frowned at her, then at Summer when she said, "Winter, we can take a moment…"

" _Please_ , Adam," Winter said coldly, not looking at Summer. "Resume playback."

Adam's eyes narrowed at her, but he nodded and did so.

 _Weiss picked herself up slowly, a faint gasp of pain contrasting her previous stoicism. As she rose her knees, her eyes opened, the left hidden behind the ridge of her nose and the pale lining of her bangs._

 _The image flickered to another Weiss, in a concert hall, singing for an audience, as her eyes closed and her head lowered. The warrior Weiss did the same. The screen dimmed and went dark._

 _The image reappeared, looking up at the singer from below, the moon appearing from behind the clouds above her through the openings in the skeletal roof of the cathedral-like auditorium. She began to sign, in harmony with the piano—no words, just a melody._

 _The image showed her from above, and then in profile, the light playing and blooming across her white skin._

 _The warrior reappeared, picking herself up slowly, first to her hands and knees, and then rising, her face hidden by her hair all the while._

 _Then they saw her face from in front, the long, open gash framing her left eye starkly red against the pale white._

Winter shrieked. " _Weiss!_ "

Adam paused.

"Okay, _what_ is happening," Taiyang exploded. " _Why_ is this _Atlesian_ heriess fighting an _Atlesian_ mech—one that looks designed to fight Huntsmen— _without full aura_?"

"It—" Winter started, her voice breaking, and then stopped, took a deep breath, and tried again as they all watched.

"Given the location of the battle," Winter said slowly, "as well as of the concert, I believe my sister is being… tested."

"Was that what the song meant?" Summer asked quietly.

Adam frowned at her, and he wasn't the only one.

Summer cleared her throat. " _White is cold and always yearning_ ," she recited, " _burdened by a royal test_. Is this that test, Winter? Some kind of rite of passage?"

"As far as I'm aware," Winter said slowly, a hint of frost entering her voice, "my family has no tradition of trying to kill its members upon their majority, Huntsmen or not."

"You're the one who said it was a test," Adam said coldly. "Not the rest of us."

"And that," Winter said sharply, glaring at him, "would be the source of my confusion. _Why would my father be doing this to my sister?_ "

"It's not as though we know your father has anything to do with this," Summer interjected. " _Royal test_ could mean any number of things, and _this_ could mean any number of things. We really know very little about what's happening here."

Winter sighed. "Weiss' battle and her concert are taking place in the same hall, viewed from opposite angles," she said quietly. "That hall is owned by the Schnee family's private estate. Either that mech is my father's…" she looked back at the screen, where Weiss' bloodied face stared back across the screen, "or a hostile mech is running amok in my family's property, and Weiss is, for some reason, the only one trying to stop it. Neither option is especially appealing."

"Can I just say," Adam drawled, "that we were just told that fifteen years from now, the world ends? If nothing was wrong in the future, then, well, we probably wouldn't be here."

"True enough, Adam," Winter sighed. "Well, I apologize for derailing us. Again."

"Don't be sorry," Summer said gently. "She's your sister. You're allowed to worry. You saw how often Tai and I were pausing for Ruby."

Winter swallowed. "It's… not that simple," she mumbled, then shook her head. "Adam, I'm composed," she told him. "You may resume when ready."

Adam nodded, and did so.

 _Weiss' sword came up and out into a ready stance, albeit with her feet out of position. She brought the sword back then and pulled a mechanism on the rapier to rotate the Dust cartridge in the hilt. Red Dust was fed through the blade, giving it a red luminescence._

 _The knight lowered itself into an aggressive stance and charged her, closing the distance rapidly._

 _When it reached her, Weiss had only just finished the process, her eyes flicked up to it and she brought the rapier up, the sword flaring with red light and forming a barrier around her as it deflected the knight's blow._

 _Weiss spun and raised her sword, point down, her hands—and the blade—beginning to glow blue with a different Dust._

 _She stabbed down into the ground and ice launched forward across the space towards the knight, even as the song began again, faster now._

 _ **Mirror, mirror, what's behind you?**_

 _The knight staggered as its legs were entrapped in ice. Weiss knelt, readying herself to charge._

 _ **Save me from the things I see.**_

 _The knight swung, but Weiss jumped and caught the sword, clinging to it as it swung, her face set. Her sword began to glow green._

 _ **I can keep it from the world; why won't you let me hide from me?**_

 _Weiss rolled down the knight's sword and stabbed at it as she passed, breaking her own ice with the blow. The strike knocked the mech's grip loose, its sword thudding into the ground beside her._

 _As larger-than-before glyph appeared below her as she rose, her rapier held before her in a guard, the Dust chamber spinning before clicking onto a hybridized purple Dust._

 _ **Mirror, Mirror, tell me something.**_

 _The knight charged her and struck with a downward punch, but Weiss rolled out of the way, the great fist clanking into the ground._

 _She held out a hand, a glyph appearing at her fingertips. Another appeared below the knight, shifting from blue, to green, to red, and then exploding, throwing it up into the air._

 _ **Who's the loneliest of all?**_

 _Weiss whirled, five star-like glyphs flickering into being around her as the sword passed before being launched forward at the knight. They bound themselves to the mech like shackles—binging each wrist, its ankles, its waist, and its neck in place in midair._

 _Weiss leapt upward, raising her sword as she went. The screen flickered back and forth, between the warrior preparing her final blow and the singer belting her climactic note._

 _The image steadied on Weiss, her eyes closed, rapier in hand, framed against the partially-shattered gibbous moon, poised to strike._

 _ **I'm the loneliest of all.**_

 _The last line was delivered softly, mournfully. Weiss' eyes opened, the Dust cartridge in her hand glowed white with aura, runic patterns flickered on the blade, and she dove with the help of a glyph, teeth bared._

 _She drove the rapier through the knight, landing on one knee on the floor behind it._

 _The mech began to fall backwards slowly, white flames seeping out from the orifices in its armor._

 _It fell behind her and shattered like glass. Weiss rose, the red gash unbroken by her closed eyes, even as the last word was sung, and slowly the wound seemed to fade into a scar and her mouth was open, delivering the song. Snow fell around her as her voice faded away._

 _Her eyes opened, blinking almost surprised at the sound of applause._

 _She looked around, seeming slightly bewildered, glanced up at the partially-shattered gibbous moon, before lowering her head, eyes closed._

 _From a distance, she crossed her legs and curtseyed formally, even as a curtain seemed to close before her. The same four cards as before slid into view from the sides, with the same four letters—RWBY._

 _Ruby appeared, colored, in place of the silhouette in red, and then Weiss faded in the place of the silhouette in white._

 _The screen faded to black, white particulates flowing across it like ash or snow. White words faded into view:_

 **SEE THE PREMIERE at RTX 2013:  
AUSTIN, TX JULY 5-7**

 _And at the very bottom,_

 _A snowflake glyph traversed the screen slowly, and as it passed the words disappeared. The screen faded to black._

The image stopped, and he was once more presented with the option to play the next recording. He did not do so immediately, looking back at the three humans.

"Well," Taiyang said quietly. "It's a shame what happened, but I have to say, Winter: your sister is one _heck_ of a fighter."

Winter chuckled. "It seems so, yes."

"We're here to prevent all of that," Summer asserted. "That's why Cinder's showing us this—so none of it happens. Weiss will grow up without that scar, Winter, I promise."

Winter looked like she didn't know what to make of that, staring at Summer with an odd look in her eyes. Adam didn't know what to make of it either, come to that.

"Thank you," said Winter finally.

"Black is next," Taiyang said, turning to Adam. "Anything you want to tell us about this mystery girl yet, Adam?"

Adam bared his teeth at Taiyang. "Not likely," he growled.

"Don't bait him, Tai," Summer chided. Adam doesn't have to tell us a thing he doesn't want to. He didn't ask to be here any more than we did, and he's just a child."

Adam grunted derisively, turned to the screen, and started the next recording.

* * *

"If I hear anything, I'll let you know," Adam promised.

 _We both know who's on the back of this,_ he thought. _It's just figuring out_ how _._

Winter smiled at him over the steam rising from her teacup, and he felt his heart accelerate slightly. "Thank you, Adam," she said. "I'll do the same for you." She cocked her head. "That being said, I don't believe you've made contact with the Xiao-Long/Rose family in the past few years. You should consider talking to them."

Adam sighed. "I'd like to," he admitted. "I miss Summer. Hell, I even miss Taiyang, awful sense of humor and all. But I'm leader of the _White Fang_ , Winter. 'Benign' or not, we're still an extralegal organization, and they're both Huntsmen. I don't want to put them in a bad position."

Winter snorted. "And I'm a military operative," she said. "You certainly seemed pleased to see _me_."

Adam hoped he wasn't blushing. _More than you know, I hope._ "I'd be ecstatic if any of you came to see _me_ ," he said wryly. "Takes the responsibility for the debacle that follows out of my hands."

Winter giggled. "I suppose it does, that," she agreed. "But I'm here with permission, so you needn't worry."

Adam blinked at her. "Ironwood gave you permission to meet with the leader of the Fang without an escort?" he asked blankly. "Is he a _moron_?"

Winter threw her head back and laughed loudly, waking Blake, who had dozed off with her head on the table. The cat faunus started, head rising, golden eyes wide and darting around the room trying to piece together what was going on. "Oh, he certainly can be," she chuckled, eyes bright with mirth. "In this case, it's more that he's willfully ignorant. The provider of the 'anonymous tip' that put Torchwick in prison wanted to see an old friend on the wrong side of the law. Who that friend is, he decided he didn't need to know."

"Ah," Adam nodded in understanding. "Yes, I can see how that might work. He trusts you that much?"

Winter's smile became slightly dimmer. "I turned my back on my family, my inheritance, and my fame to fight for the same cause as he does," she said with a shrug. "We trust each other."

Adam frowned at her. "I hope you're still able to keep in touch with Weiss," he said.

Winter nodded. "It's not as though there's any case to be made for a restraining order," she said, leaning back. "Even if Father wanted to, he would have no way of keeping me from seeing her. And it's not as though I've even been disinherited; I'm just not being groomed to inherit the family's shares in the company, and the _public_ knows that means I'm out of his favor. I'm still _technically_ welcome at home, as much as any grown child at her family's house. Whether Father would actually offer me a bed is… up for debate."

Adam winced. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Don't be." Winter sighed and gave him a small smile. "Father is a flawed man, but his greatest strength is that he knows it. One day, once all's said and done, I'll rebuild things with him."

 _Assuming we all survive,_ Adam thought but didn't say. Instead he turned to Blake, who was already nodding off.

"Blake," he said, gently, "you don't have to stay; go to bed."

Blake pulled herself up with visible effort and shook her head. "No, I'm—" she was interrupted by a loud yawn. "—I'm fine." She looked shifty. "Promise."

Winter's lips twitched. "Don't worry, she declared, rising. "You have no need to protect your fearless leader's honor any longer. I must be going too."

"We have spare cots," Adam offered. "I hate to turn you out at this time of night."

Winter looked at him with a sardonic smile on her lips. "I appreciate the thought, Adam," she said, "but I rather think one needs a house before one can have houseguests."

Adam looked away.

Winter stepped in and embraced him. "It's been good to see you, Adam," she said softly. "I'll try to do it more often."

He hugged her back. "Please do," he said. "I just wish I could move as freely."

She sighed. "One day, Adam," she promised. "One day, all our goals will be fulfilled."

"One day," Adam agreed.

They separated and with a last smile and a look, Winter turned and left the warehouse. Adam sighed.

"So…" Blake drawled. He turned to her. Her tired eyes were hooded and glimmering with laughter. "You and _Winter Schnee_ , of all people. You never cease to amaze, Adam, really."

Adam snorted. "Yeah, right," he grunted, returning to the table and beginning to clear away the tea set. "She's beautiful, don't get me wrong, but I haven't seen her in over a decade. Not like I know her very well at this point."

"Didn't stop you from making doe-eyes at her every other sentence," Blake chuckled. "Not that she was any better."

"That why you insisted on staying up?" Adam asked, glancing at her with a raised eyebrow. "Afraid we'd 'lose control,' and, what, start tearing each other's clothes off?" he snorted, then started to laugh, unable to contain it. "Some leader I'd be."

"I don't trust her," Blake said firmly, "and nor should you, yet. You said it yourself, you haven't seen her in over a decade. How do you know she's on our side?"

Adam's laughter subsided as he considered the question. "In any other circumstance," he said slowly, "you'd be entirely right, and I'd be an idiot for trusting her. But… there's something unique about this situation, which you don't know about—and no, Blake," he added, meeting her eyes, "I'm _not_ going to tell you. You'll have to trust me on that point, but in exchange, I won't ask you to trust Winter. She's not going to be involved with us closely at this point, but if she _does_ get more closely linked to us, you have my permission to watch her as closely as you think necessary, all right? I see why you don't trust her."

Blake nodded. "Fair," she agreed. Adam had kept a few secrets from her over the years, and she from him; she was used to it, he liked to think. "Don't go doing anything too stupid, though, would you?"

Adam smiled. "I'll try," he said. "No promises."

* * *

The months passed without word from Winter. Adam kept his ear to the ground, looking for any information on the Dust thefts.

Whoever they were, the thieves were not operating as Torchwick had. Torchwick had given a face to the crime, and had thus been a grand scapegoat for Cinder's plans—and, by extension, Salem's.

Winter had taken out Torchwick before that plan could really get off the ground. Adam had rendered the White Fang hopefully unusable to the enemy. Thus, in order to destabilize Vale—the end goal—Cinder would have to turn to another approach entirely.

Adam would have expected her to find another scapegoat, but Cinder seemed to have made the intuitive leap that Torchwick's capture _now_ meant that someone was onto her. Rather than go to ground, however, she was escalating; replacing a comfortable grandstanding criminal with a frightening shadow player. As long as she was not directly tied to that thief the way she had been tied to Torchwick, it was theoretically no more dangerous to her, but it would be more effective in the short term.

People liked having a face—Torchwick—to blame. Without that, Vale was getting nervous. The authorities seemed useless—how could they not have _any_ leads on what this criminal even _looked_ like?

In the end, it could very well lead to the same end result: a direct Grimm invasion of the kingdom, and a potentially fatal destabilization of the balance of power. It might even reach that point sooner.

But there were certain things Cinder needed to fulfill that aim, Adam knew. First, she would almost certainly still infiltrate the CCT in an attempt to gain control of the Atlesian mechs. That had been a masterstroke in the original timeline; at once, she had massively increased her destructive power in Vale, diminished Atlas' military massively, _and_ had left the other three kingdoms without a modicum of trust in their strongest military. The combination had been devastating.

Second, she would still need military equipment to facilitate the transportation of Grimm into the city. In combination with the mechs, this move had cemented the connection between Atlas and the enemy in the minds of the general public, but it was arguably more important that the Grimm had been free to wreak havoc in the city center. This was especially important since the same bullheads could be reused in one invasion after another: Cinder had repeated the tactic later in her invasion of Mistral.

But most importantly of all, Cinder would need at least one human or faunus agent, not directly connected with her, who could facilitate the thefts in Vale of Dust and equipment. She clearly already had such an agent.

It now fell to Adam to find them and shut down their operation.

* * *

"I hate to leave," Blake said quietly.

They were seated together under the shattered moon, the soft light suffusing the cobblestones of the street below them and the shingles of the roof on which they lingered. Blake's hair shimmered in the pale light, her faunus ears flicking to and fro in the only show of nerves she allowed herself.

"I know," Adam said gently, "but you know this is what you want."

Blake hadn't become a huntress to get away from him this time; she'd done it because she wanted to, and she did it with his blessing. It was a few years ago, now, that she'd first expressed the desire to attend Beacon. She'd spoken of it like an unfulfillable dream, something impossible, just another wrong they were fighting to right.

Adam had managed to get in contact with Ozpin directly. The moment when he'd handed Blake her acceptance letter on her birthday was one of the highlights of his life.

She looked over at him, and her eyes were ever so slightly wet. "I won't be able to keep in touch," she said softly. "Not often. Professor Ozpin might know I'm a member of the Fang, but I won't be able to spread it around."

"I know," Adam agreed, meeting her eyes, "just like _you_ know that it's still not goodbye _forever_. Just for a while."

"Too long," Blake mumbled, looking down and away. Then she reached over and hugged him. "I'm going to miss you, Adam," she said, her voice cathing on a sob. "I'm going to miss you _so much_."

Adam hugged her back, rocking her back and forth, even as she began to cry in earnest. "I'll miss you too, Blake," he murmured. "But I'll see you again before you know it."

"Promise?" she sniffled.

"Count on it," he told her gently.

She buried her face into his chest. "Thank you," she said quietly, voice muffled by his clothes. "For taking care of me. For keeping me alive when I was younger, and for giving me a place to live later. For teaching me to be a good person, and for giving me a cause to fight for. _Thank you_ , Adam. I—oh Oum, _why am I leaving_?"

He held her tighter. "You're growing up," he comforted. "People do that. You've found the war you want to fight, and it's not the Fang's. And that's fine. Your part's at least as important as mine."

He leaned down and pressed his lips tenderly into her hair between her ears. "You wouldn't have been happy with us forever," he said. "You like to pretend you like being alone, but I know you, Blake. You wished you could walk down the street without a disguise and meet people who weren't involved in the fight. Now you have that chance. I'm so happy for you."

"Why can't you, though?" Blake mumbled. "Why don't you get that chance too? Why can't I take you with me?"

Adam chuckled. "Because, Blake, just as you can't be happy and yourself with the Fang," he said, "I can't be without it."

The sound of an engine hummed in the air overhead. Adam glanced up and saw the approaching bullhead.

"That's your ride," he said, taking Blake's shoulders and standing, helping her up with him. "Come on, dry your eyes." He reached into a pocket and handed her a red handkerchief—one of the many reminders he kept on himself to keep him remembering that, despite the potential to be a monster, he was still sane and civilized and would remain so.

She wiped her eyes and cheeks with it, clearing away her runaway makeup, before looking down at the now-dyed cloth. "I can't do anything without ruining something of yours, can I?" she said wryly.

Adam took her into his arms again. "Blake," he chuckled, "you have no idea how many times I'd have been lost without you. But I'll be okay now." He let her go and put a finger to her chin to tilt her head up, his eyes meeting hers. "I've learned a lot from you," he said quietly, "and I like to think I've taught you a fair bit in turn." He nodded over at the nearby helipad where the bullhead had landed. "It's time to see if we've learned our lessons."

She hugged him tightly. "Come and see me off?" she whispered.

"Of course."

They leapt off the roof together, hand in hand, and made their way over to the helipad in silence. A woman Adam recognized peripherally was waiting for them.

"Miss Belladonna," Glynda Goodwitch said with a nod, then turned her sharp green eyes on him, studying him over her glasses. "Mister Taurus. I wasn't expecting to see you here."

"I'm just seeing her off," he assured the Huntress. "I'll be out of your hair soon."

She snorted. "I doubt you'll be 'out of my hair' until Vale passes several more acts of faunus rights legislation," she said, "because until that point, you'll still be a criminal, and I'll be trying to bring you in."

"Not trying very hard, are you?" he asked with a smirk.

"No," she agreed, her face perfectly composed. "No, I am not. Carry on, Adam Taurus." She turned back to Blake. "Most young Huntresses who come to Beacon return to their families over the breaks, and see them occasionally over the year. While I doubt you'll be totally separated from Mr. Taurus, I'm sure you understand when I say that once you get on this bullhead," she gestured to the open door with her riding crop, "there is no going back; not without consequences. This is your last chance to change your mind."

"It's also your last chance to get on that bullhead," Adam said gently when she turned to him. "I _know_ you, Blake. You turn around now, and you'll regret it for the rest of your life. You know it."

She swallowed. "I'll write to you," she promised.

He smiled. "I'll reply," he promised, wondering how the hell he was going to get a letter through the post unintercepted.

She hugged him one last time. He hugged her back, tightly.

Then she had let go, spasmodically, as though forcing herself, and turned away. One ponderous step after another, she left his side and climbed onto the bullhead.

Goodwitch boarded after her and turned back to Adam. "Good luck, Mister Taurus," she said. "And thank you."

"Thank you, Professor," he said. "For giving Blake this opportunity."

The Huntress smiled. "I look forward to seeing what she does with it," she said, even as the doors began to close.

"Goodbye, Adam!" Blake called, voice wild, as her face was covered by the metal panel.

"Goodbye, Blake," he called back, forcing his voice to steady as the door shut.

The airship began to rise in the air and he watched as it rose above him, engines roaring, before passing away into the night.

"Goodbye," he whispered, finally lowing his head and letting the tears come.

* * *

 **A/N: I got about a minute into the White trailer shortly after writing chapter one and then basically gave up for two months because, as said above,** _ **holy fuck Monty Oum**_ **. Still, this is still a little easier to write than the next scene of** _ **The Sisters Grimm**_ **. For some reason.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Volume 4, Chapter 1 has aired for FIRST members. This chapter will not contain spoilers for it. I will also refrain from discussing it in detail in this A/N. I strongly encourage everyone to see it tomorrow for free on RT's website.**

 **Real talk? It suffers a little from the same overabundance of Jaune that plagued Volume 1, but it's otherwise a** _ **magnificent**_ **return for the series. Go watch it.**

* * *

 _Beast of Burden_

Chapter 3

* * *

 _Once more, a single phrase in white shone through the black of the screen._

 _ **Your hopes have become my burden.  
I will find my own liberation…**_

 _Meaning… what, exactly?_ Adam wondered, brows furring. _Liberation is good… but how can hope be a burden?_

 _The screen lightened to an image of Vale in autumn in the half-light of the late afternoon, the early-rising moon shattered behind falling red leaves._

 **ROOSTER TEETH  
presents**

 _The words appeared even as the image began to lowed in perspective, sinking from a midair view of the red hills to an image of a girl sitting alone on a boulder._

 _She was framed in profile, facing the left of the screen, and slightly away so that her face was hidden. A black bow topped the head of long dark hair, and she wore a black coat over a white blouse. A weapon was at her hip—folded, though it look like it might unfurl to a buster sword. Her purple leggings ended in black heeled shoes._

 _The same voice as before began to hum: a soft, eerie melody._

Adam swallowed. He couldn't be sure—the black hair alone wasn't enough—but that bow was situated _just so_ …

 _A man in black stepped just barely into view on the left, only a part of one of his legs in black visible, as well as a fist in a red-lined glove._

" _Blake," he said in a rough, deep voice. "It's time."_

Adam tensed. He'd been right. But who was the man?

 _The image closed in on Blake as she turned, her liquid golden eyes—_

—familiar, and yet newly made-up with violet eyeshadow that gave her a sharp, mysterious beauty—

— _looking over at the speaker through the audience._

" _Okay," she said, a hint of uncertainty in her voice._

 _The image dimmed and went black._

"That's it?" Taiyang asked blankly.

Adam was just about to explode at him when another image appeared.

 _The ground of that autumnal forest, bloodied with the red of the fallen leaves, passing sideways. Even as it appeared, crawling from right to left, however, a dashing figure in black, with flaming red hair, a bone-white mask, and a chokutō at his hip, traversed from left to right, followed closely by the girl. The leaves stirred as they passed._

 _The screen darkened again._

Adam blinked. _No way,_ he thought dully.

"Was that you?" Summer asked him.

He was saved from having to answer by the video.

 _The red treetops came into view, and then passed away as the two runners reached the edge of the woods and halted. A crow cawed as it flew past them, disturbed by their passage._

 _The man in black was finally still enough to be seen clearly; his crimson hair failing to quite hide the two bull horns that just poked out of the sides of his head, even as his white mask hid his face as he looked out over the valley below._

"Wow, kid," Taiyang complimented. Adam instinctively paused, not wanting to miss a moment. "You got _cool_."

Summer giggled. "It certainly seems that this older you knows how to handle himself," she agreed. "Do you know this 'Blake' now, or will you meet her before then?"

Adam worked his jaw for a moment. _They don't know she's a faunus,_ he rationalized. _But they already know her name. As long as I'm careful…_

"I know her," he admitted. "She's a… friend of mine."

"She's very beautiful," Winter said quietly. Adam, startled, turned to her. She was studying the screen with pursed lips.

 _She doesn't know Blake's a faunus,_ Adam realized. _She'd turn that sentence around quickly if she…_

"She's a faunus, isn't she?" Winter asked quietly. Adam blinked at her, stupefied. She smiled slightly. "That bow _really_ isn't very effective," she said. "Besides… I can't imagine you calling anyone but another faunus child a friend."

Adam's fists clenched. "Why?" he asked sharply. "Because no _humans_ would want to waste their time with us?"

Winter recoiled, and Summer cut in with a sharp, "Adam!"

Adam glared at her, and when their eyes met, her silver ones softened. "I'm fairly sure Winter means that _you_ wouldn't trust _them_ ," she said gently. "Any more than you trust _us_."

Adam sneered. "And for good reason," he said roughly. "I hope Blake _does_ find her own liberation." He turned and restarted the footage.

 _Below the two, a railway ran snakelike on the floor of the valley. As they watched, a bullet train began to pass their perch._

 _Adam leapt first, jumping down off the cliff, followed shortly by Blake. Their legs were poised and tensed to slide on the steep slope, maintaining their angle and approach._

 _Once again, first Adam and then Blake kicked off and spun, falling toward the locomotive. As Adam landed, his chokutō came out and the sharpened sheath stabbed cleanly into the metal roof to hold his landing. Blake landed just as solidly, but her weapon remained sheathed._

"Okay, holy _crap_ future-you is a badass!" Taiyang laughed. Adam ignored him.

 _From this kneeling position, both Adam and Blake pushed off into a run, dashing along the length of the train, leaping silently from cart to cart, before eventually stopping. Adam struck out with a firearm in the hilt of his chokutō before lowering to raise the emergency exit he had broken open. Blake knelt beside him as he dropped into the train. The screen dimmed and went black._

"You're breaking into a train," Taiyang said evenly. "Why?"

Adam paused the footage spasmodically and turned to look at him, a snarl building on his face. "Will you stop?" he asked angrily.

Taiyang raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "All right, all right, jeez."

Adam growled as he turned back and restarted the footage.

 _Adam was already kneeling when Blake landed beside him. He turned to her._

" _Looks like we're gonna be doing this the hard way," he said darkly as the screen zoomed out, showing the laser grid they'd tripped in landing and the Atlesian mechs lining the walls._

 _The mechs lit up red with an inner light as they powered on, heads rising and visors dropping as their bodies became animate. They moved to surround the two as they stood._

 _Blake's eyes were brighter now and seemed more comfortable. A light smile was on her lips as she reached for the hilt of her sword on her back._

" _Don't be so dramatic," she said lightly._

Adam smiled. That was so very like Blake; always keeping him in check when he got too silly or excited.

"I like her," Summer chuckled, but since she didn't seem to be continuing, Adam didn't pause.

 _The two faunus held their weapons undrawn, but at the ready. Eyes glancing from one mech to another, waiting for one of them to make the first move._

 _One finally did, it's hands withdrawing into its arms, the metal folding as it changed its stance tri-barrel machine guns replacing the humanoid digits._

" _Intruder," it said, it's mechanical voice low and menacing. "Identify yourself."_

 _Adam frowned slightly as he studied it, seeming almost disappointed. He aimed the hilt of his chokutō at the mech without pulling it and released the weapon itself, holding only by the sheath._

 _The firearm burst forth with fire, and the sword was launched by the recoil, striking the robot dead in the center of its metal face._

 _The music shifted from an eerie beat into an electronic syncopation, rhythmic and exhilarating._

 _Adam lunged, taking his own sword out of the air by the hilt, slashing across the mech's throat as he passed it, then turning, blowing the disjointed extremity off of the robotic shoulders with his gun even as he slashed across its back with his sword, making the motion flow evenly into the sword's sheathing._

 _The robot fell in two visible pieces, with the head somewhere out of sight._

 _The mechs looked at each other in a parodically human way before blades extended out of each of their wrists. One by one, but still in a group, they charged._

 _Blake was facing away from them, but by the golden eye turned in their direction she was well aware of the danger._

 _She knelt, hand on the hilt of her weapon, and then leapt even as the vocals kicked in._

 _ **From shadows…**_

 _She flew backwards, spinning, slashing through three of the mechs as she went. She landed kneel and charged past Adam, who spun around her._

… _ **We'll descend upon the world…**_

 _They fought back to back, taking on two mechs in unison. They whirled as one, striking down the robots in pairs with swordplay and gunfire._

… _ **Take back what you stole.**_

 _One mech with machine-gun hands readied itself and began to fire. Adam knelt to make himself a smaller target and brought out his blade, deflecting the gunfire from himself and Blake behind him._

 _ **From shadows…**_

 _Blake charged past him, continuing to deflect, and brought down the mech in one strike, before whirling on the one behind it and bisecting it from shoulder to hip._

… _ **We'll reclaim our destiny…**_

 _She knelt and spun, cutting another down at the knee. Another was cloven through its torso, and then she jumped, boosting herself with feet on the falling mech's head as she jumped over it._

… _ **Set our future free.**_

 _She glanced up and rushed forward. An upward slash followed by another to the side both dispatched and displaced another mech to move it out of her way. She stabbed the next, then spun, taking the next two out in one motion._

 _ **And we'll rise…**_

 _She leapt over the last on, striking it to make it stagger, before Adam came forward and kicked in the chest._

 _It flew into the wall, which gave and opened._

 _The screen suddenly blackened and then lit up again as they landed on an outdoor cargo car._

 _ **And we'll rise!**_

 _A veritable army of mechs charged them from the cargo—military crates of indeterminate nature._

"Is anyone _really_ worried you'll lose?" Taiyang chuckled.

Adam snorted, but didn't pause.

 _Adam glanced at Blake, his expression hidden under his mask, and said, "Let's do this!"_

 _He charged them, Blake close behind. He slashed upward, throwing three into the air, where Blake met them with a flurry of attacks. As they fell, Adam shot them, casting them back and away._

 _ **Above the darkness and the shame,**_

 _Blake landed kneeling, eyes closed as the mechs closed in around her. For a moment she seemed almost meditative; then she opened her golden eyes and looked up, teeth bared._

 _ **Above the torture and the pain,**_

 _She threw her sword; it shifted into a hook shape in midair, a black ribbon tying it to her wrist as it flew past a mech's head._

 _ **Above the ridicule and hate,**_

 _It rotated as it flew and when the barrel of the gun that was in its hilt was facing away from the robot it fired, throwing the weapon back towards Blake even as she came forward to meet it—and the mech caught in the middle._

 _She tripped it with her ribbon even as Adam leapt over her to stab it; the flailing hook flying behind her like a taught black fishing line. She spun, and Adam left over the whirling weapon as it orbited her, cutting through several mechs at once._

 _ **Above the binding of our fate.**_

 _She hooked the blade behind the last mech and held it for a moment as Adam dispatched it, before following him past the falling robot, taking only a moment to reclaim her hook, and reshape it into a blade._

 _Adam took out two mechs with a pair of vicious strikes, then struck down a full clump of eight with a fully ending in a sweeping slash._

 _Blake the head off of one of his targets, then jumped, slashing through another's cranium. She hit another before it was finished by a round from Adam's firearm. She charged past him, extending her ribbon and wielding her chain-hook like a nunchaku, spinning upward in a vicious flurry while Adam caught up and slashed one of the two mechs caught in her attack while shooting the other._

 _Adam leapt upward, throwing two over his head with his sword, even as Blake did a handspring and cast up a third with her heels._

 _In a vicious triple slash, Adam staggered a trio of mechs before Blake cut through them in an upward leap, finishing with a kick to the third robot's chest, casting it down past her._

 _Adam drew his sword, slashing it once and then firing at it with his gun when it came to him. He knelt, sheathing it, and then the screen went black again._

"Can we talk, for a sec?" Taiyang suggested.

Adam rolled his eyes but paused just as color was returning. He turned. "What?"

"Just trying to make sure we're all caught up," Taiyang said. "The song. I couldn't hear all the words: what was it about?"

"I think they're revolutionaries," Summer said slowly. "Lots of imagery of resistance and rising up, and something about persecution; 'ridicule and hate.'"

Adam sneered. "Good," he said roughly. "I've had enough of you humans stepping on me."

Summer looked at him sadly. " _I_ wouldn't step on you."

Adam was about to burst forth with something about how all humans were the same, but something about the soft sympathy in her eyes caught the words in his throat.

"Does anyone have any idea whose train they're attacking?" Winter asked. "Those mechs look like something Atlas might have in a few years. Is it a military transport?"

Taiyang shrugged. "Maybe," he said. "Or—" he stopped, glanced at her, and then said, "or SDC, maybe?"

Winter frowned, then nodded slowly. "I can certainly see where Faunus revolutionaries might have cause to attack the SDC," she agreed slowly. "We do have a labor-conditions problem."

Adam snarled at her. "And you don't do anything about it?"

She looked at him with a twisted smile on her lips. "Adam, I'm _eight_. Could you do anything in my place?"

He bared his teeth but had no answer. He turned and restarted the footage to avoid looking at her.

 _The image returned with the two faunus entering another car. They stopped at the entrance, looking at something further in. They glanced at each other, and then continued on._

 _The next image was from inside a box of some kind as it was opened, and the two of them looked in._

" _Perfect," Adam said, cruel satisfaction in his voice. "Move up to the next car," he ordered Blake._

 _He closed the box and turned to her fully. "I'll set the charges."_

" _What about the crewmembers?" Blake asked concernedly._

" _What_ about _them?" Adam asked callously._

"Hold on," Taiyang said sharply. "What."

Adam paused the footage but didn't look around. There was silence.

"Adam?" Summer said softly.

"What do you want me to say?" he asked sharply. "So he's— _I'm_ —okay with killing people. That's… that's fine. They're humans! He's making a difference!"

"All it does is make you a target," Winter said quietly. "People don't react well to fear."

Adam whirled on them. "What should we do then?" he growled. "Nothing? Grin and take it?"

"Of course not," Summer said. "But… you don't want to kill people, either."

Adam swallowed. "Apparently I will if I have to."

"Just…" Summer met his eyes. "Don't prove them right," she said. "Not all of us are bad, and not all of you are, either. Don't add to the problem."

Adam clenched his fists.

"Enough," Winter said firmly. "Need I remind you all that _none of this has happened yet_? Mrs. Rose is _dead_ by this time, and _I_ am apparently so powerless in my own house that I let my sister sustain a potentially scarring injury in one of our halls. Now we find Adam has become a murderer, but one," she added quickly when he turned on her, "with a cause. Cinder told us we were here for the sake of these four girls… but I'm as willing to take this chance for our own. Aren't you? Even if your people are worth killing for, Adam," she met he eyes, "wouldn't you _rather_ find a better way? Now you have the chance."

Adam swallowed. She was right, but he wasn't about to say as much. He looked between them, all gazing at him, and then he whirled and restarted the footage.

 _Before Blake could answer, there was a sound from behind the man. Blake just closed her eyes and turned slightly away from him as he turned to the source. The screen cut away just as she looked back, sorrow in her eyes._

 _Some sort of massive spider-like robot with four legs, shoulder-mounted cannons, and two weaponized arms was being brought down from the darkness at the top of the car. It fell to the ground with a clang on all four legs as a different, male voice began to sing._

 _ **Born with no life,**_

 _The mech rose and brought its cannons to bear, its eyeless visor seeming to stare down the two faunus._

" _Adam," Blake said unhappily, seeming to be continuing their earlier conversation._

 _ **Into subjugation.**_

 _Adam ignored her, striding forward. The mech began to charge energy shost with all four weapons, blue light suffusing the air between them._

 _ **Treated like a worthless animal!**_

A muscle jumped in Adam's jaw at that line. It resonated in his head like scripture.

 _The robot began to fire an ongoing volley of blue energy rounds; great balls of blue light that Adam vivsibly didn't even try to block; opting instead to dive and roll out of the way. Blake ran past him, slipping between the shots as she made for the robot. She leapt upward as she reached it, her blade held ready to strike its head._

 _ **Stripped of all rights,**_

 _The mech was unamused, and headed off her attempted leaping strike with a headbutt, casting her back with a yelp onto the ground. She tumbled, landing on her stomach. It advanced predatorily on her prone form._

 _ **Just a lesser being.**_

 _Adam flashed past her, striking its head with a flurry of slashes, making it stagger back, away from her. He landed, kneeling, in front of Blake._

 _ **Crushed by cruel ruthless human rule!**_

 _The mech kicked him as he recovered, throwing him back against the cargo on the far wall, and then began to fire at him, forcing him to evade. It moved, raising its leg to stomp, hard, on Blake._

 _Adam dove, plucking her out from under the thing just as its leg came down with a clang._

 _He dashed back to the far door with her in his arms, cradled like a lover, before letting her down gently._

 _ **When it started, all we wanted was a chance to live our lives.**_

 _As she breathed deeply, recovering, Adam turned back to look at the robot. Blake turned to him._

" _We need to get out of here," she said, almost pleading._

 _The mech brought together its four cannons, extending them into one massive weapon._

 _ **Now in darkness: taking everything we want and we will rise!**_

 _The cannon charged with a blue glow, cyan flames jetting from orifices on the sides of the device as it loaded with a great blue orb glowing at the tip. Then it blew forward with a lance of blue light. Adam brought his sword up to deflect just in time to keep it from his face, but it still cast the two of them through the wall, which shattered, scattering crates everywhere. They both fell onto the next flatbed tumbling._

 _ **We'll rise; we'll rise!**_

 _Adam, recovering first, looked up to see the spiderlike mech coming out of the hole it had made and crawling onto the car with them._

 _Adam looked over at Blake, who had risen to a kneel. "Buy me some time!" he ordered._

" _Are you sure?" she asked seriously._

" _Do it!"_

"She's going to leave," Summer predicted quietly. Adam paused the footage at once and turned.

"What?" he asked.

"That wasn't about whether you wanted her to hold the mech," Summer said quietly. "She's giving you a last chance to let this fight go. She's _not_ willing to kill. If you stay on this, she'll be gone by the end of this video."

Adam swallowed. "Blake wouldn't leave me," he said, voice wavering. _She can't._

Summer shook her head slowly. "You're not that man," she said gently.

Adam twitched, turned, and restarted the footage without another word.

 _Blake charged the mech even as Adam bent his knees and looked down, hand on the hilt of his sheathed weapon, channeling aura in a visible red glow in a classical ready position for chokutō users._

 _Blake dodged two rounds from the smaller cannon as she rushed the mech. She leapt up and past it, hooking her blade into its face as she went, tethering herself with the ribbon. She pulled herself down and fired the gun to bring the hook back to her hand as she fell. She flipped as she did, bringing the hook slashing viciously at the mech three times before landing._

 _She charged again, slashing one leg and then another, dodging away from its retaliatory shot, before leaping up, and apparently getting struck back and away._

 _The image of her flying back disappeared, however, and she was back between its legs._

 _She leapt up, stabbing it in the chin, and fired repeatedly and rapidly into its neck before pulling herself away with a shout._

 _The thing began to charge another shot of its massive central gun._

" _Move!" Blake shouted at Adam, dodging out of the way._

 _Adam didn't. The beam struck true, but he caught it on his blade and this time he didn't even stagger, the metal glimmering with blue light as she sheathed it again._

 _The screen went black and then, for an instant, all that was visible was the red of Adam's hair and the trim of his mask and clothes, seeming to glow in the dark, as he laughed low and dark._

 _The mech jumped up, launching itself at him. The red of Adam's hair and costume were almost white with illumination now._

 _Adam struck out with a single vicious slash that seemed to extend past his sword in a black flare. The color seemed to wash out of the world, leaving only black silhouettes and the red of rose petals flying from the arc of his blade._

 _The mech_ disintegrated _, dispersing into black dust in midair even as Adam sheathed his sword, the color returning to the world. He turned back in the direction Blake had gone._

 _He ran up to the division between the train cars and then seemed to be brought up short, holing out a hand to his partner._

 _Blake was turned slightly away from him, eyes closed, but then she looked over at him, her golden eyes sad, but determined._

" _Goodbye," she said, her voice just loud enough to be heard over the wind and the train. Her hand came to her blade and she cut the connection between the cars. Slowly, she fell away from Adam, the distance growing wider as the train-cars slipped apart. The world faded again into red and black, with Blake's black silhouette against a red backdrop, and black flecks in place of the red autumn leaves flitting past her. Then all that faded into darkness, and from that darkness emerged the four cards from before; Weiss and Ruby still holding their positions. Now Blake's image colored in the black card, leading only the golden-haired yellow._

 _This, too, faded into black, and then into red, with falling black flecks behind words in white:_

 **SEE THE PREMIERE at RTX 2013  
AUSTIN, TX JULY 5-7**

 _Then this, too, faded into darkness._

"Well," Adam said roughly, standing up and walking away from the screen. "You were right."

"Adam," Summer said gently. "It hasn't happened…"

"But it _could_." Adam's teeth could barely be unclenched enough to speak. "Blake could… _leave_ me like that. After everything!"

"Blake couldn't stand to kill for your cause," Winter said softly, "but it wasn't anything new to you, clearly. The fact that she stayed on for that long it surprising, really."

Adam turned on her. "You don't know what she and I have been through!" he said furiously. "How do you think Mistral treats a pair of homeless faunus orphans! She's _all I have_! I'm the only person she can rely on! I bring her food, and keep her out of the rain, and keep us _alive_! _How could she leave me?_ "

Summer stood up, rushed across the room, and took him into her arms despite his struggles. "She _didn't_ ," she said gently. "And she _won't_. She left that man, who _isn't you_. You have to change to become him, Adam—change into someone Blake doesn't like; someone _you_ don't like. It's _not_ inevitable; it's not even _likely_ , now."

Adam found he had stopped struggling. "She can't just leave," he mumbled.

"She won't," Summer promised. "She won't."

* * *

"Adam!" Rivi broke into the room at a run. "Dust theft in progress. Dust Till Dawn, downtown."

Adam stood and turned from his desk, where he'd been planning their next move. "Dust Till Dawn?" he asked quietly.

Rivi nodded, breathing heavily. "You said…"

"Thank you," Adam said. "I'm on my way." And he was out the door at a dead sprint.

From Dust Till Dawn was near the city center. The warehouse was at the docks. It would be a run of almost two miles.

Adam gritted his teeth and _ran_. This was the store that Ruby frequented, and it might well be the theft that got her into Beacon. There were a few reasons he needed to be there.

If he could, he'd like to meet Ruby; meet, in person, the girl whose alternate life had had such an impact on his own.

He needed to find out who was behind these Dust thefts, and there would be no better opportunity than now.

And, if they were really more dangerous than Torchwick… he needed to protect Blake's friend-to-be.

It took him nine minutes hard running to arrive, and by the time he did, the fighting had broken out. A girl in a familiar red cloak was facing off against, yes, Hei Xiong's thugs.

Torchwick was nowhere to be seen, but nor was anyone else of distinction.

Adam drew Wilt, Blush ready in his left hand. "Hey!" he called, his deep voice cold. "What's Junior need all this dust for?"

The men all turned to him and a few stepped back in shock. "Taurus!" one exclaimed. "The hell are you doing here?"

"Been asked to look into the dust thefts," Adam said, striding forward. "What a surprise to find you lot here. Does Junior even know you're taking side employment, or is this a frame job? Or is he behind it?"

"We ain't tellin' you nuthin'" one said gruffly. "Yer a damn _rat_ is what you are."

 _Rat, as in traitor or informer,_ Adam knew. _Not slang for faunus._

He rolled with it anyway. "Bull, actually," he said, pointing to the horns in his mop of red hair. "Couldn't you tell?"

"That's not wot I meant," mumbled the man, but Adam cut him off.

"Look," he said, sheathing Wilt again—but he and the men all knew that made him no less dangerous. "There are a lot of people who _really_ want to know who's behind all this. You've stepped into a minefield. I'm offering you a way out. Tell me who's paying you, and I don't have to go to Junior's place over it. He's still fixing it up, right? I'd hate to undo all that progress."

The men looked at each other. "Look," one said, turning to him. "We don't even know all that much, all right? There's this guy—dog-ear, like you, and mad as all hell about it, don'tcha know. Wears a mask like a Grimm."

 _The Black Fang,_ Adam realized. The faunus extremist group he'd been unable to prevent. Even as he'd managed to keep the White Fang on course this time, their more extreme elements—sans him—had slipped away and fromed the parallel Black Fang, which insisted on undoing every step of progress he and his made.

"Great," Adam muttered. "Also, bull. Get it right."

"'S a figure of speech, mate."

"It's a damn _slur_ , is what it is. I've fought people for less." Adam nodded at the briefcase in one of their hands. "Leave the Dust," he ordered. "I doubt…"

 _Heat._

Adam rolled out of the way of the jet of flame and turned, looking up at the bullhead with the open side-door.

Cinder fall stood just out of the light, but he knew her by the Dust-infused lining of her dress, the flaming glow of her eyes, and—of course—the straight-up magic she was slinging his way.

He gritted his teeth. "Great," he muttered. He leapt to the near wall and kicked off, leaping up onto a roof even as another fireball came his way. He cut through it with Wilt as he landed, dispersing it into nothing more than a puff of heat. "Miss Rose!" he shouted, hoping Ruby would act. "Keep her off of me, please!"

Ruby leapt past him in a flicker of rose petals and fired her rifle at the woman. Cinder deflected each round with her palm and then launched another gout of flame at Ruby, but Adam was no longer paying attention. His mind was focused inward.

 _For it is in rebellion that we attain immortality,_ his aura sang, like fire in his veins. _Thus, we rise above our former states to become an emblem of all that we can be, beyond measure in scope and in value. Thus, I unleash your soul…_

"And by my blade," Adam mumbled, his eyes opening even as Ruby yelped and was cast behind him by another fireball, "fight for thee."

Cinder launched a tongue of flame at him, but he caught it on his blade in a moment that he seemed almost to see from without; for an instant, the fire was blue, and the bullhead was an SDC defense mech.

Then he leapt, and the bullhead was cloven in two.

Cinder nimbly rolled out of the way of the blow and jumped out of the rapidly-disintegrating bullhead, sending fire his way all the while, focusing him to fall back to the rooftop to deflect it. By the time he looked again, she had slipped into an alleyway.

There was a crunch as someone else—the pilot, most likely—landed on the cobblestones, but when Adam looked, no one was there but the dust of their flight.

"Fast," he muttered. "Maybe a semblance for it?"

He turned. Ruby was staring at him, wide-eyed. "Who are you?" she asked numbly.

"Adam Taurus," he introduced. "Leader of the White Fang."

"I told you I'd take you in the next time I saw you," said a voice beside him. He turned.

Glynda Goodwitch had joined them on the roof at some point. Her silent approach spoke volumes to her skill as a Huntress, not that that had ever been in question.

"You _do_ have a habit of turning up in places where I can't in good conscience turn you in, don't you?" she asked him, a quirk of a smile on her lips.

He snorted. "Sorry for doing my job," he said.

"I believe your job is to generally be a criminal and a nuisance," Glynda said, rolling her green eyes at him. "Not preventing Dust thefts and protecting talented young huntresses."

Adam shrugged. "Not my fault Vale's so prickly about paralegal justice," he said wryly. "Nor is it my fault the SDC decided to set up work camps within your borders. It could be worse."

Glynda nodded. "We agree there," she said.

"You're a Huntress," Ruby said, coming before them with a Semblance-assisted flash. Adam looked at her and saw that her eyes were shining with something like hero-worship as she stared up at Glynda. "Can I have your autograph?"

 _Some things never change._

Glynda sighed through her nose. "Mr. Taurus, it would be silly of me to ask you to accompany me to the police station for a debriefing?"

"Very silly," Adam agreed, inclining his head. "Those thugs got away while we were busy," he said, nodding at the damaged street, "but I know where they came from. I'll follow that lead while you take care of young Miss Rose."

"How do you know my name?" Ruby asked him blankly. "I've never met you before."

Adam twitched slightly. _Be more careful, you damn fool!_ "I've met your parents before," he said eventually. "Summer and Taiyang are good people."

"They've often said the same of you," Glynda mumbled, studying him. "I wonder… where did you meet?"

Adam looked away, down at the street below. "Long story," he said. "Ask them. I'll see you around, Professor. Maybe you can arrest me next time."

"Perhaps," Goodwitch agreed good-naturedly as he leapt down into the street. "Oh, and Adam?"

He glanced back. She was smiling. "Your… friend is doing quite well," she told him. "She's settled in nicely."

Adam smiled back. "I'm glad. Give her my love."

"I shall. Go, before I arrest you."

He chuckled and fled.

* * *

 **A/N: I hate having to create OCs for RWBY. There's so much extra work that goes into it—the weapon, fighting style, color, et cetera—which really don't resonate with me as much as the emotions and motives that are more universal do.**

 **Unfortunately, I see no way to proceed without creating, at minimum, one OC. Shame, but I don't intend for them to play a particularly vital character role.**

 **Side note: the Black Trailer is** _ **long**_ **. And yet, somehow, it was easier to transcribe than Red or White. Partly because only about 50% of it is combat rather than 90%.**

 **Also, Monty Oum may have been a glorious choreographer, but** _ **Christ**_ **these characters do a lot of really stupid things in those fight scenes. My aesthetic senses appreciate his work; my inner, efficiency-obsessed martial artist does not. At least not on such close observation.**


End file.
